The laptop

Every campaign runs through your laptop: it is where you hire mercs, order guns, manage money and — in 1.13 — run half the strategic layer. Vanilla JA2 shipped with seven website bookmarks; current 1.13 builds have seventeen, most of them added by the mod. This page is a tour of everything on the machine and how each site becomes available. Deep mechanics live on the linked pages.

Version context

Everything below was checked against the current GitHub source (github.com/1dot13/source) and Ja2_Options.INI defaults, i.e. the v5 / "Latest (unstable)" releases. Older installs have fewer sites.

Opening and closing it

From the strategic map screen, press L or click the laptop button in the bottom-right corner. A blinking envelope over that button means unread email. Inside the laptop, Esc shuts it down again; the full key list is in the hotkeys reference.

Three [Laptop Settings] keys in Ja2_Options.INI change how it feels:

Setting	Default (gamedir)	Effect
DISABLE_LAPTOP_TRANSITION	TRUE	Skips the zoom-in/zoom-out animation when opening/closing the laptop.
FAST_WWW_SITES_LOADING	TRUE	Skips the fake modem "Downloading" delay when opening websites.
LAPTOP_MOUSE_CAPTURED	FALSE	Locks the mouse inside the laptop area (toggle per session with Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y).

The desktop programs

The buttons on the left side of the screen are the laptop's "programs":

Program	What it does
Mail (Mail Box)	Your email inbox — see below.
Files (File Viewer)	Enrico's briefing letter and other documents you acquire during the campaign. A paper icon appears when a new file arrives.
Personnel	Stats, inventory and employment history for current and past team members, including the departed and the dead.
Financial (Bookkeeper Plus)	The finance log: balance, daily income and every transaction. The economy page explains what feeds it.
History (History Log)	A chronological diary of the campaign — hires, battles, quests, town captures — with day and time stamps.
Web	The sir-FER 4.0 browser and its bookmark list.
Shut Down	Same as Esc.

Email matters in 1.13

Mail is not just flavor. Besides Enrico's progress reports, insurance correspondence and Speck's M.E.R.C. spam, several emails carry website bookmarks: the I.M.P., M.E.R.C., Kerberus, Militia Overview and R.I.S. sites are all delivered this way (details per site below). When mail arrives you get a "You have new mail..." notice — read it, or the corresponding site never shows up in your browser.

The browser and bookmarks

Click Web to connect; the bookmark menu drops down, and afterwards you can right-click anywhere in the browser to reopen it. There is no address bar — if a site is not in the bookmark list, you cannot visit it. Bookmarks are added as you unlock them:

Bookmark	Site	How it appears
A.I.M.	Association of International Mercenaries	Always available from day 1.
I.M.P	Institute for Mercenary Profiling	Read the I.M.P. intro email (in your inbox at game start).
M.E.R.C.	More Economic Recruiting Center	Read Speck's intro email — arrives at 07:00 on day 2 or 3 (day 1 with MERC_WEBSITE_IMMEDIATELY_AVAILABLE = TRUE).
Bobby Ray's	Bobby Ray's Guns and Things	Follow the link on A.I.M.'s "Links" page; the store stays "under construction" until you control a shipment-destination sector (Drassen airport B13 by default).
Insurance	Malleus, Incus & Stapes Insurance Brokers	Follow the link on A.I.M.'s "Links" page.
Mortuary	McGillicutty's Mortuary	Follow the link on A.I.M.'s "Links" page.
Florist	United Floral Service	Follow the "Send Flowers" link on the Mortuary site.
Campaign History	Arulco Press Council	Automatic if CAMPAIGN_HISTORY = TRUE (default).
MeLoDY	"Mercs Love or Dislike You"	Automatic if dynamic opinions are on (DYNAMIC_OPINIONS = TRUE, default).
Kerberus	Kerberus Inc. (PMC)	Email offer 1–6 hours after you first complete militia training (needs PMC = TRUE, default).
Militia Overview	Militia roster	Email from Enrico after militia training or prisoner defections, with individual militia on (INDIVIDUAL_MILITIA, off by default).
R.I.S.	Recon Intelligence Services	Email from Enrico 1–3 hours after you first gain intel (needs RESOURCE_INTEL = TRUE, default).
WHO	World Health Organization	Automatic if the strategic disease layer is on (DISEASE + DISEASE_STRATEGIC; off by default).
Factories	Factory Overview	Automatic if FACTORIES = TRUE (off by default).
A.R.C.	Arulco Rebel Command	Automatic once Rebel Command is enabled and the rebels' food delivery quest is done.
Briefing Room	Briefing Room (mission mode)	Automatic if BRIEFING_ROOM = TRUE (off by default).
Encyclopedia	In-game encyclopedia	Disabled in current builds — see below.

Several of the toggles above (Kerberus, disease, intel, dynamic opinions) can also be flipped per campaign on the 1.13 Features screen when starting a new game.

Hiring and personnel sites

A.I.M.

The Association of International Mercenaries: mug shots, stats, video-call hiring, insurance-deposit policies, plus alumni and history pages. In 1.13 the roster is much bigger and hiring gained gear-kit choices and contract options — all covered on the hiring & contracts page. Don't overlook its Links page: it is the way to reach Bobby Ray's, the insurance brokers and the mortuary.

M.E.R.C.

Speck's discount agency — cheaper, rougher personnel paid by account balance rather than contract. The site opens once Speck's intro email arrives (day 2–3, or day 1 via INI); more mercs join his roster as the campaign progresses. See hiring & contracts.

I.M.P.

The Institute for Mercenary Profiling builds your custom merc(s) for $3000: a personality quiz, attribute point-buy, traits and starting gear. The site needs the access code from Enrico's email (still the vanilla XEP624), and 1.13 lets you create several IMPs. The whole process is documented on the IMP page.

Kerberus

A private military contractor ("Experience In Security") that sells militia instead of mercs: regulars and veterans for a steep down payment plus daily fees, delivered within about 24 hours to an airport, harbor or border-post sector you control. Once you complete your first militia training session, Kerberus notices you and emails an offer 1–6 hours later. Stock, prices and entry rules are on the hiring page.

MeLoDY

"Mercs Love or Dislike You — your #1 teambuilding experts on the web." The public face of the dynamic opinions system: analyze a squad's internal chemistry, compare two mercs pairwise and read personality write-ups. Present whenever dynamic opinions are active (on by default). See morale & opinions.

Shopping

Bobby Ray's

The mail-order gun store: Guns, Ammo, Armor, Misc, Used and (new in 1.13) a Recent Shipments page. The bookmark appears when you first visit via A.I.M.'s Links page, but the shop itself only opens for business once you capture a shipment-destination sector — Drassen airport (B13) in an unmodded campaign. Inventory quality/quantity, restocking and shipping options have their own page: Bobby Ray's.

Services

Insurance — Malleus, Incus & Stapes

Life insurance for your (A.I.M.-hired) mercs: pay a premium, collect a payout if the insured merc dies — and expect fraud investigations if the circumstances look fishy. Reached from A.I.M.'s Links page. Costs and claim behavior are covered under hiring & contracts and the economy page.

McGillicutty's Mortuary

"Helping families grieve since 1983." A vanilla flavor site run by ex-A.I.M. merc Murray "Pops" McGillicutty; every service link politely reports the site is unfinished "due to a death in the family". Its one working link — Send Flowers — leads to the florist.

United Floral Service

"We air-drop anywhere." A working joke shop: pick an arrangement and a card and have flowers air-dropped to a city in Arulco, billed to your account as Purchased Flowers in the finance log. Where you send them, and how tasteful the card is, is your own business.

Running the war

A.R.C. — Arulco Rebel Command

The command interface of the Rebel Command feature: national and regional directives, administrative actions and agent missions, paid for with a Supplies resource. It must be enabled (REBEL_COMMAND_ENABLED = TRUE, off by default) and the bookmark only appears after the rebels' food delivery quest.

R.I.S. — Recon Intelligence Services

"Your need to know base." The marketplace for the intel resource: buy information (enemy garrisons and patrols, persons of interest, aerial recon of map regions) on the Information Requests page, or upload photographs your spies took for verification and an intel reward on the Information Verification page. Enrico emails you the link a few hours after you gain your first intel. How to earn and spend intel: covert operations and the economy page.

Militia Overview

A roster of every individual militia soldier you have — name, rank, origin (trained, defector or Kerberus hire), sector and battle history — with filters for rank and status. It requires the individual-militia feature (off by default); Enrico mails you the link once you have militia to look at, including when interrogated prisoners defect to your side.

Factory Overview

The control panel for production lines: choose what each factory facility manufactures and watch the hourly rate. Only present with FACTORIES = TRUE (off by default).

WHO — World Health Organization

"Bringing health to life." The WHO tracks the Arulcan plague: for a daily fee (default $2000) you can subscribe to outbreak maps that color the strategic map by infection status, and its tips page is an in-game manual for the disease system. The bookmark exists only when strategic disease is enabled (off by default).

Campaign History — Arulco Press Council

A neutral "press council" collecting reports about the conflict: a conflict summary, detailed battle reports and news items generated from your campaign. On by default (CAMPAIGN_HISTORY = TRUE); CAMPAIGN_HISTORY_MAX_REPORTS caps how many old battle reports are kept (default -1 = all).

Extras

Briefing Room

An optional mission mode reminiscent of Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games — mission briefings with pictures, text and sound, played outside the normal campaign flow. Enable BRIEFING_ROOM = TRUE, open the site and enter the access code SN5631. Missions are fully moddable via TableData\BriefingRoom\BriefingRoom.xml; see externalization.

Encyclopedia

An in-game encyclopedia site exists in the source, and Ja2_Options.INI still carries ENCYCLOPEDIA / ENCYCLOPEDIA_ITEM_MASK keys — but the feature is compiled out of current builds (the INI itself notes it "is currently deactivated and does not do anything"). Setting the key to TRUE has no effect.

No other secret sites

That is the complete list — the bookmark enum in the source contains exactly the sites above. Kingpin's bounty offers, for example, arrive as email and quest events, not as a website.

New to all this? The first steps walkthrough walks through a beginner's first laptop session in order.

Sources

• Laptop/laptop.h and Laptop/laptop.cpp — 1dot13/source (bookmark enum, auto-set bookmarks on entering the laptop, A.R.C. food-quest check)
• Laptop/email.cpp — 1dot13/source (emails that grant the I.M.P., M.E.R.C., Kerberus, Militia Overview and R.I.S. bookmarks)
• Strategic/Town Militia.cpp — 1dot13/source (Kerberus and Militia Overview email triggers after militia training; R.I.S. email on first intel gain)
• Strategic/Assignments.cpp, Strategic/Game Init.cpp, Strategic/Game Event Hook.cpp, Strategic/Player Command.cpp — 1dot13/source (militia-roster email from prisoner defections, M.E.R.C. intro timing, Bobby Ray's unlock on capturing a shipment sector)
• Laptop/AimLinks.cpp, Laptop/funeral.cpp, Laptop/BobbyR.cpp, Laptop/IMP HomePage.cpp — 1dot13/source (A.I.M. Links page targets, Mortuary→Florist link, under-construction store, XEP624 code)
• Ja2/GameSettings.cpp and Ja2_Options.INI — INI keys, defaults and the feature-flag overrides
• i18n/_EnglishText.cpp — exact site names, bookmark strings, program titles and site text
• Briefing Room feature/modding documentation text from the 1.13 documentation set (access code, EDT/XML layout)
• Bear's Pit: "Kerberus and questions thereof" — player-side confirmation of the Kerberus unlock email